Bridesmaid Proposals

I never really realized how hard it is to propose to someone till I had to propose to my bridesmaids. Is that what it’s even called? That’s what I’m going to call it. I procrastinated on doing this since the whole idea of planning a wedding overwhelmed me. I started receiving texts from friends like “hey….so….have you chosen your bridal party?” which is when I knew it was time to get started on the whole thing. I wanted to find the perfect way to ask the girls to be in my bridal party but I also needed it to be inexpensive since John and I have decided to be super thrifty from now until the wedding. I perused Pinterest and Etsy for different idea’s which were all pretty cute but mostly made for brides that had their bridesmaids at close proximity. 4 out of 7 of my bridesmaids live out of the city, one even lives across the country, so I had to find something that would travel well while also having a personal touch.

I really liked the idea of having my bridesmaids have some kind of box to open. I knew Michael’s sold cigar boxes which would work well, but at $7 a piece I would be paying around $50 – and that’s just the beginning. Then come the little trinkets I would have to fill it with. Instead, I shopped around and found wooden boxes at the dollar store with a built in frame at only $2.25 each! They were the perfect size and price, so of course I snagged 7 of those which came to a total of $16, not a bad deal if you ask me.

When the girls opened their package, they would see the picture frame on the front of the box where I had written “it’s time for me to pop the question”, when they opened the box it says “will you be my bridesmaid?”. That was the easy part, I then had to figure out what to fill them with…

The first thing I knew I wanted to do 100% was to allow each girl to choose her own dress. We’ve all seen the movie “Bridesmaids” and know that everyone has different financial situations. The last thing you want to spend money on is a dress you’ll likely never wear again in your life. I want everyone to feel comfortable and beautiful at my wedding, so I went to RONA and got every shade of green paint swatch I could find. I then cut up each different shade and grouped them in piles. Then, with each girls colouring and style in mind, I designated a shade for each bridesmaid with a note explaining that she could find her own dress in that colour family, all I ask is that it be knee or midi length. Everyone seemed to love this idea, they can invest money in dresses they actually like and will wear again. It’s a win/win for everyone. The best part for me was that the paint swatches were free so I didn’t have to pay a penny for this part!

Next, I wanted to give each girl a list of who was in the bridal party. John and I decided that it was too hard to choose a maid of honour and a best man, so we are going to forgo the tradition and instead have one giant bridal party. I explained this to the bridesmaids and gave them each a list of who was in the party. I didn’t want to just print it on computer paper, so I went to Michael’s and got 8 sheets of construction paper at 49 cents a piece. I then printed out the list, glued it onto the construction paper and wrote the wedding date on the back. This doubled as a save the date, which again, saves us some money.

Next was my favourite part. I found a pack of hair ties on Etsy that said “help me tie the knot” on the box which I thought were super adorable, but each package cost about $7 plus shipping – not worth it in my opinion. I went to Clair’s and got 4 packs of 4 hair ties at $3 a pack on a buy one get one free deal. For less than the cost of one package of hair ties, I was able to buy the exact same thing for each bridesmaid. I made sure that there were at least 7 green hair ties in the packages so they would go with the theme of the rest of the box- and the wedding. I used the rest of the brown construction paper that I had bought at Michael’s and cut out little rectangles to present the hair ties on, I then wrote “help me tie the knot” on each one with a gold marker and voila! Cute little favours for each bridesmaid under $10.

Lastly, I gave each girl a bottle of mint green nail polish to fill the box up. I loved the way that these turned out and the girls loved them when they opened them up.

I spent under $50 all together and was able to put these together (with the help of my mom) in just a couple of hours. Completely inexpensive yet thoughtful! Like I said in my last wedding post, it all seems a little overwhelming when you think about all the things you have to do for a wedding and all the things you have to put together, but if you just put a little time, effort and thought into it you can come up with crafty, inexpensive alternatives to almost anything!